Only Myself
by J. Lynn
Summary: Mystique remembers a time when she had lost herself, what she found has made her who she is today.


Disclaimer: Mystique doesn't belong to me, Marvel owns her. And really you can't sue me because she's not named outside the disclaimer.   
  
** Only Myself  
By J. Lynn  
**   
When you look at me what do you see?   
  
I suppose that would depend on the day.   
  
The hour.   
  
The minute.   
  
When I look in the mirror all I ever see are my eyes. Everything else fades in to the background as I catch a glimpse of my eyes.   
  
They're the only thing that can bring me back to myself.   
  
Long ago I learned how to become someone else. I could shove them out of the way and take their place so completely that no one would ever know the difference.   
  
When it was time to be someone else I would go, leaving a hole in where that person should have been.   
  
Sometimes that wakes me up at night.   
  
No, not regret. Not for a human.   
  
I've spent so much of my life as other people if I were to die there would be no hole where I was supposed to be.   
  
That's what wakes me up at night. Because I'm not awake enough to keep it away.   
  
I've left so many holes.   
  
Become so many people.   
  
There's more to being someone else than you'd think.   
  
You have to push every tinny bit of yourself into a box, way back in the deepest corner of your mind. Then you fill the rest of it with what you know of that person. You become them.   
  
You have to know how they walk, how they talk, how they think. It gets so that you have echoes of their memories. And slowly it takes up more and more room. What was once just the smallest bit of knowledge becomes mountains as you live their life, watch their t.v. shows, and have lunch with their friends.   
  
And slowly you begin to jettison bits and pieces of yourself.   
  
Somewhere along the line I lost enough of myself that I no longer knew what I was doing, it was just habit.   
  
One day I was wandering around a park. Taking a day off, to just be myself, when I saw a sign in a store window. "Know yourself" it said, "'cause if you don't who can?"   
  
My first impulse was to scoff, but I knew that that stupid little green and white sign had a point. I had become made up of so many different people, most of which I knew I wanted nothing to do with, I could no longer remember who I was.   
  
After a few weeks of brooding over those thoughts I went out and rented myself a little cabin in the woods. I sat on the lumpy bed for hours and hours, not moving, barely breathing, just thinking.   
  
Trying to remember one thing that was me.   
  
Finally, after hours of hitting my head on the wall, I went outside. Stretching, I headed towards the lake. As I jumped over a log my foot caught on a branch.   
  
As I fell to the ground I felt a stabbing pain in my chest.   
  
"You freak!" A voice shouted in my ear.   
  
I rolled instinctively, looking around for my opponent.   
  
"You shouldn't be allowed to live! You're an abomination." The voice continued.   
  
"No, I'm not!" I shrieked. "I'm not!"   
  
"Oh, but you are," a voice hissed into my ear. "You don't deserve to live. All you are is a piece of scum. Mutant scum."   
  
I spun, but once again there was no one there.   
  
Backing towards one of the trees I tripped once again. The fall knocked the wind out of me. I curled into a ball, panting hard, and trying to block the voices that surrounded me.   
  
"You're worthless. Nothing."   
  
"No I'm not," I whispered. Suddenly the voices retreated.   
  
Slowly I sat up, shaking and breathing hard. I made my way to the cabin, all the while keeping an eye out for whoever had assaulted me. After stumbling in the door I slammed and locked it. Then, all my strength seemed to desert me.   
  
As I sank to the floor I took deep breaths, tears threatening to obscure my vision, I suddenly started at a movement in the corner. Unable to make myself move I watched it for a moment.   
  
As it stepped into the light I realized with relief that it was only a bird. Suddenly I snapped. Here I was terrified of a bird and some voices.   
  
I sat up furious. How dare they say such things to me! It wasn't true! None of it!   
  
Then and there I vowed to make them pay for saying such things. I hated them for telling me such lies.   
  
They had to be liesÉ If they weren't lies then I couldn't hate them. Only myself.   
  
But they were lies, told by some stupid human, a cruel prank that was so typical of their species. Well I would show them. I'd show them.   
  
I shooed the bird out before leaving. I had found my center. The one thing that I could hold onto. No matter who I became I would always remember what evils the humans had done to me.   
  
I remember it every time I see my eyes in the mirror. And before I go to sleep at night I remember what happened that day as I watched the raven in my dark home and heard the voices that still ring in my ears.   
  
End  
  



End file.
